Witches Cove by Roy J. Snell

Author:Roy J. Snell
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781634215787
Publisher: Duke Classics

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It was at noon of that day that Betty found herself moving slowly, cautiously down the narrow passageway at the heart of old Fort Skammel, that was supposed to lead to the spot where Ruth had seen the face in the light of her Roman candle on the Fourth of July.

The place was spooky enough in daytime. In truth, day and night were alike in those subterranean passageways which had once led from dungeon to dungeon and from a battery room to one at a farther corner of the massive pile of masonry. No ray of light ever entered there. The walls were damp and clammy as a tomb.

Still, urged on by mystery and who knows what need of change and excitement, the slender, dark-eyed girl pushed forward down this corridor, round a curve, across a small room which echoed in a hollow way at her every footstep, then round a curve again until with a wildly beating heart she paused on the very spot where Ruth had fired the eventful Roman candle.

Nor was she to wait long for a thrill. Of a sudden, of all places in that dark, damp and chill passage, a hot breath of air struck her cheek.

Her face blanched as she sprang backward. It was as if a fiery dragon, inhabiting this forsaken place, had breathed his hot breath upon her.

Be it said to her credit that, after that one step backward, she held her ground. Lifting a trembling hand, she shot the light of her electric torch before her.

That which met her gaze brought an exclamation to her lips. Not ten feet before her a square in the floor, some three feet across, tilted upward. Moved by an invisible, silent force, it tilted more and more. A crack had appeared between the floor and the tilting slab. From this crack came the blast of heat that fanned her cheek.

"The fort is on fire," she told herself in a moment of wild terror.

Then, in spite of her fright, she laughed. How could a structure built entirely of stone burn? The thing was absurd; yet there was the heat from that subterranean cavity.

"There!" She caught her breath again. The heat waves had been cut short off. She looked. The slab of stone was dropping silently down.

"It—why it's as if someone lifted it to have a look at me!" she told herself as a fresh tremor shot up her spine.

She did not doubt for a moment that this conclusion was correct. In spite of this, and in defiance of her trembling limbs that threatened to collapse, she moved forward until she stood upon the very slab that had been lifted.

"Don't seem different from the others," she told herself. "Nothing to mark it."

"Well," she told herself as her eager feet carried her farther and farther from that haunting spot, "I've done a little exploring. I've made a discovery and had a thrill. That's quite enough for one day."

"Ought to tell someone," she mused as she sat before the wood fire in the great fireplace of the big summer cottage on the hill that evening.

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